This awards show was the first in 14 years to be held in August because of NBC's request; because of NBC Sunday Night Football, the show moved to accommodate NFL Kickoff Weekend.

A new voting system determined nominees in particular categories (mostly lead acting and outstanding series categories) by a "blue ribbon" panel of judges, which resulted in the exclusion of popular shows such as Desperate Housewives and Lost, and actors like Hugh Laurie from House. Lost‍ '​s exclusion was mocked during the opening sequence (see below), when O'Brien, accompanied by Hugo "Hurley" Reyes, heads down a hatch to get to the Emmys. O'Brien asked Reyes if he wanted to come; Reyes says coyly, "Well, we weren't exactly invited", to which O'Brien replies "But you won last year!"

The show that received the most major nominations was Grey's Anatomy, with eight. The top-nominated show had not received so few nominations since 1970, when Marcus Welby, M.D. received six. However, there were far fewer nominations back then, with most categories having three slots. This made this ceremony even more unique.

The pilot episode of My Name Is Earl joined a select group of TV episodes to win Emmys for both writing and directing.

The opening sequence of the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards show depicted the host, Conan O'Brien, wearing a tuxedo, sitting in luxury on a plane, sipping champagne and mentioning to the flight attendant that this would be the second Emmy's broadcast that he would be hosting. O'Brien then rhetorically asked the flight attendant, "What could possibly go wrong?" Immediately after that, the plane began to experience turbulence and then was portrayed as having crashed on (or near) an island. O'Brien is then seen walking ashore on the beach and onto the island still wearing his (now drenched) tuxedo (the video of this opening sequence is here [1]). Hurley appears and then follows O'Brien to a hatch. When O'Brien asks if he wants to come along, Hurley says that they "weren't exactly invited". O'Brien enters the hatch and arrives on the set of The Office.

The intention of this opening sequence was to parody the premise of the ABC televisionseriesLost; however, the sequence reportedly disturbed some viewers because of the Comair Flight 5191 disaster that had occurred earlier in the day.[3] At least one local NBC affiliate had the unfortunate coincidence of running a "Breaking News" scroll about the crash at the same time as the scene was airing.

Entertainment industry critics, such as LA WeeklycolumnistNikki Finke, lambasted NBC's decision to not pull the plane crash portion of the opening sequence, in light of the aforementioned crash earlier that day. Finke stated that she believes NBC could have—with relative ease—instructed their writers to come up with a different sketch at the last minute, which could have been used as a substitute [2].